I know the magic is what does it for me and, I believe this is true, my column brings the magic to you! So, I hope you are ready to approach the sheer wonder of the latest Tinsletown extravaganza which just opened at the Rialto: “Don’t Go In The Woods.” Believe you me, it is worth all 82 glorious minutes. Swarmed in the miracle of the cinema.
I mean, the music is more than enough. I thought, I thought, I heard the delicate strains of Cole Porter. This H. Kingsley Thurber is a near relation, no doubt. His closing song had words which delight and a melody that is, at one time, familiar and completely new. The delightful sounds he generates are musique concrete to the nth power. Every whump, every blip, every thunk means something. It means you’re getting A-1 entertainment that not only sits on your face but wiggles around.
I think, as much as I know about the cinema, that Hollywood (forgive me) has not yet exploited to the fullest (Artistically and otherwise) a certain character: the very fat man. I am here to say “This should change!” This week’s sweet, sweet film has one of these porcine brothers to all. Bravo to James Bryan, visionary and beyond behind this extravaganza, for exploring the girthful man who plays the Sheriff. It felt real to me. And, I didn’t hear anyone complain.
Thin and fat people can live in harmony. What a movie!
Something occurs: I haven’t told you what this is about. This new world excitement. This vanguard film!
Close your eyes if this is too much but...A man is killing some people. Killing them dead. How? Well, let me just throw out a few words for ya: knife, machete, bear trap, rocks...How does that sound? They do not disappoint with this one! Cyril, what about the death? Well kids, the reds are redder and I Love It!
Why kill you ask? Well, nothing’s that easy. But, I’ll try. (You know who I am.) Somewhere in Utah, a bad man is killing people. Our adventures follow an adventurous quartet on a backpacking hike through this glorious and foreboding place. Two men, two women. You have your yin and I can see your glorious yang. Somewhere around them this guy creeps about with his weapons of ouch. All sorts of folks are killed. (Cherry and Dick are my personal favorites. I’d like to see a film about their lives leading up to their death. Maybe that’s in the works. Regardless, it was good to see Mom & Dad again.) Eventually, our robust friend, the Sheriff, and his deputy, the Deputy, join the fray. Manhunt! And, what a time it was!
You want scares? Sure. What kind? Scary ones. All so unexpected and all so !SNAZZ! that I don’t want to ruin one. OK, one. Opening scene: A young lady being chased through the forest. (A mountainy area, no doubt the grandest of sets. They looked very authentic.) Let me tell you a little more about her...She’s wearing shorts. She is chased and...almost in the wink of an eye...killed. How? I can’t tell ya. But, one word...thrill.
I’ve never seen such a film. Yes, maybe, we’ve seen similar things before but screw you pal! This fresh twist is like a newly picked carrot. Touched with dirt and sung high with dew. Maybe the plot has a touch of something familiar to it, in the same way that each winter has a touch of something familiar in it. But, as with each winter, something different peers from its depths. Ways of touching my heart I never would have thought of fill up this film. Scenes jump, characters are so subtly brought in that the audience is required to make all identification with them. (The birdwatcher, the man in the wheelchair, the sleeping bag couple? I know them. As well as I know myself.) Shifts in plot and tempo that keep you as off balance as a leg lopping swat from our psycho.Strange noises, disembodied voices and an odd sense of reality! Hollywood can create anything! (All this strangeness made me think that maybe this film was set in some sort of netherworld. Maybe these were evil people sentenced to an eternity in Hell! Or something like that. It feels odd enough. This theory doesn’t really hold up. But, the majesty of Hollywood’s art is that you can interpret each piece in so many ways. So many ways.)
And, let us not forget our four leading thespians: Jennie, Inga, Peter and Greg. If you do not see this quartet in cinema to come, I will eat my 10-gallon hat with hazelnuts.The four of them complete a cosmic rectangle of gargantuanly epic proportions. Their work is so far beyond that you almost feel like they’re doing nothing...I’m going to watch it again...to learn.
Wrapping it up, our killer: Mad? Yes. Superhuman? Sure. Suprahuman? That’s up to you. Fabulous? Uhhh...yeah. What’s wrong with you that you can’t see this? Do you hate yourself so, so much? Beads in the face, wild hair, drool (those F-ects men are incredible), a way with a machete and a mean little growl when he wants to growl like Mr. Mean Growl. Why is he there? What drove him to this? Is he a Viking? All these questions and more will be answered when you see...no...when you experience “Don’t Go In The Woods...Alone.”
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